Janusz Palikot; photo - PAP/Tomasz Gzell
In a last push before election day on 9 October, Law and Justice (PiS), clearly disturbed by opinion poll findings, claim that a vote for Tusk equals Janusz Palikot in government - a politician who left the prime minister's centre-right Civic Platform (PO) last year because he thought it was too socially conservative.
Palikot has also been a fierce critic of Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski: as Palikot was a critic of his late twin brother, former president Lech Kaczynski who died in the Smolensk air disaster in April last year.
Palikot frequently called for Lech Kaczynski to publish his medical records to prove he didn't have a drink problem.
The latest Law and Justice political advert features shots of a famous press conference Palikot once gave where he is seen waving around a sex toy.
Palikot favours a clearer separation between church and state in Poland and is for liberalising soft drug and abortion laws.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski told Newsweek Polska this week that a vote for Palikot is a, “vote for the deputy prime minister against the Church”.
The new Law and Justice advert ends: “On Monday, Palikot may be in government”.
A poll by the CBOS released in the final hours of the election campaign finds the Palikot Movement on 7 percent support, two percentage points behind the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) but one percent ahead of the Polish Peasant's Party (PSL).
The Palikot Movement has been picking up support in the last few days from mainly younger, disaffected Civic Platform voters but also poaching support from the centre-left SLD.
Civic Platform are clear leaders to be the largest party in parliament with 34 percent of the vote with Law and Justice on 20 percent.
For the last four years Poland has been ruled by a Civic Platform, Polish Peasant's Party government. Jaroslaw Kaczynski's message in the last few days of campaigning is: vote Civic Platform and Palikot will be invited into the next coalition.
The conservative Kaczynski cannot hope to persuade Palikot's support to come to him: Law and Justice's targets, however, are the more socially conservative Civic Platform voters - who just might.
All election campaigning must stop at midnight, Friday night, Saturday morning, as a period of election silence descends on Poland – giving voters one last chance to chew over their choice on election Sunday. (pg)